Thanksgiving Diary Comics
Courtesy of Bernadette Mayer
We’re pretty busy over here at Autobiographix with the end of the semester hectic times, so for our latest post we decided to dive into some self care via diary comics.
We’re big fans of the form, and have written previously on how to keep haiku diary comics, some of our favorite examples, and Amaris shared her thoughts on keeping a comic diary, a practice she regularly does. (In fact, she has a book of diary comics - buy Unfiltered - just in time for holiday gifts!).
This time around, Amaris and I (Nora) decided to try diary comics using the prompts of Bernadette Mayer. You may have come across this list before, but it’s definitely worth diving into again - Mayer is exciting and exhaustive in her ideas for journaling.
Before we show you our work, here’s a bit more about Mayer, who passed away a little more than a year ago (Nov. 22, 2022). From early on, Mayer was interested in memory. In July of 1971, she shot a roll of 35mm film daily while also keeping a daily written journal. These photos and journals became the backbone of her first show, Memory, which appeared in 1972.
Along with observing her thousands of photos, visitors also heard Mayer read her written journal entries, piped into the gallery.
Mayer called Memory “an emotional science project,” and continued to use diaristic practices throughout her life.
So, using Mayer-inspired experimentation, here are our long weekends…
I used “times of solitude” and “the body and its parts.”
And then, “systematically derange the language: add a gerund to the end of each line” and “pleasures and/or pain.”
I (Amaris) had hoped to document some dreams, because I thought they might be weird and fun to draw. However, I started the holiday break under the weather, and so I quickly reverted to food.
The tug of dreams and coincidences.
A chance for dream-like weirdness.
One day the whole of the Lone Star State will be pickled….
If you try any of Mayer’s prompts and want to share, we’d love to see it in our comments!
Also, in case you missed it, after our call to action to create Wikipedia pages, a few more have been added to the “sum of all human knowledge”! Thank you to the folks who took up the call! We hope to add a few more before the end of the year.
And a little proud educator moment. :)